Impact behaviour of a new Hemp/Carbon sandwich structure

Abstract This paper aims to present a new sandwich structure comprising of a grid hemp core and carbon skins. Two typology of hemp cores (7 and 8 mm in thickness) that mainly differ in the density values (0.36 and 0.63 g/cm3) were produced by an ad hoc manufacturing process and adopted to produce the sandwich structures under investigation. Aiming to extend the use of natural fibre composites (NFCs) for applications where high impact resistance is required and to replace common materials used as cores with more eco-friendly ones like the proposed hemp core, low velocity impact (LVI) tests and non-destructive (ND) tests were carried out.